


A Long Way Down (2014)

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: A Long Way Down (2014)
Genre: Analysis, Meta, Nonfiction, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:34:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25881418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: This film explores the theme of suicide, and the review contains spoilers. Complete.





	A Long Way Down (2014)

Open to our first protagonist, Martin Sharp, played by Pierce Brosnan, on New Year’s Eve. He’s grooming himself, and the first line of the film is his VO, “Anyway, to cut a long story short, I decided to kill myself.”

Leaving his flat with a ladder, he continues VOing. He was a TV celebrity, he had sex with someone he didn’t know was a minor, and not only did he lose his career and do a short stint in prison, he also lost his wife to divorce, and the kids live with her.

Driving to a building, he fails to get the ladder in a lift.

Up on the roof, he’s standing on the ladder when protagonist Maureen Thompson, played by chameleon actress Toni Collette, shows up. She’s a nervous, almost twitchy, middle-aged woman.

They have an extremely awkward chat.

Then, protagonist Jess Crichton shows up. She’s young (18), manic, and in a moment I love, adults Martin and Maureen, the former especially, are both immediately, ‘Nope. Must protect this girl.’

It’s been established Martin is a parent to two young girls, but it’ll later be established Maureen is a parent, too, and her son is special needs. I don’t believe them being parents is the root of their protectiveness, but it does add an interesting layer to it.

Amid all this, the final protagonist, American J.J. Maguire, has shown up. He’s a pizza deliveryman. I originally said he was in his early-to-mid twenties, and this is how I read him, but it turns out, Aaron Paul was in his mid-thirties during this movie. J.J.'s age is never given in the movie itself.

So, in what I’d think would be actually rather dangerous in real life, in order to keep Jess from using it, Martin knocks the ladder off the building. Luckily, it doesn’t seem to hit anyone. It does, however, hit a car.

It starts raining, and Martin leaves.

Admittedly, his protectiveness only goes so far, and his lack of concern over the three suicidal people he just left doesn’t exactly paint him as the most sympathetic.

In his car, he VOs about how he’ll never, ever see those “freaks and misfits” ever again.

Naturally, he quickly comes across Maureen standing in the rain at a bus station. He orders her to get in, and she complies. Aw.

Next, they come across J.J. unable to start his motorcycle, and finally, they find Jess walking in the rain.

Abrasive Jess tries to figure out why everyone was on the roof. She pegs Maureen as a lonely cat lady, but Maureen has no cats, and she insists it’s helplessness, not loneliness, responsible. Jess declares herself a woman spurned. J.J. claims to have inoperable brain cancer, and Pierce Brosnan does some impressive acting in this moment. Martin looks at J.J. through the rear view mirror, and it’s clear how unfairly tragic he finds this and how much compassion he has for this young man.

After this, Jess has Martin drop her off at a club.

Martin drives away, but continuing the Martin and Maureen are parents bit, they talk about Jess. Maureen tentatively wonders if Jess should be alone right now.

The next scene has the three entering the loud, crowded club, and J.J. is naturally the planner when it comes to finding Jess.

Eventually, by accident, Martin finds Jess’s ex-boyfriend. Coming over, Maureen goes into mother mode with criticising the boy for not doing Jess right. She demands he help find her as well as have a proper talk with her. Heh.

J.J. appears. “It’s Jess.”

Transition to Jess being unloaded out of an ambulance. The medical people try to get information from the four on what she might have taken and their connection to her. Jess’s ex is even more useless than these actual strangers are, despite, y’know, having been in a relationship with her, and there’s this neat moment where I’m pretty sure Maureen is considering smacking and chasing him out.

Later, outside, the three pass around a cigar, and here’s where it’s revealed Maureen has a son. Jess comes out in her hospital gown, and J.J. is blunt about the fact they were worried about her. Parents Martin and Maureen pile his coat and her scarf on Jess.

Inside, Dad Martin has brought coffee for him and Maureen and sodas for the kids. Jess proposes none of them attempt suicide until Valentine’s day wherein they’ll all meet up again to take stock of themselves and one another. She makes them all sign a paper to the effect.

As annoying as Jess can be, Imogen Poots does have plenty of moments throughout the film where Jess is shown to have much more depth than Jess wants the other characters to believe. The above moment is awesome in a black comedy way, but it also shows Jess can be a smart cookie at times.

Cheesy or not, the way the sun comes up after they all sign, and they all bask in the beauty is a cool moment. Then, Jess realises they wrote on the back of Maureen’s suicide note, and all the characters have a moment of levity.

Next up is Jess. She VOs about how she’s always wanted to be invisible, and it’s shown she’s stalking J.J. She ignores a call from her dad, and it’s soon revealed her sister disappeared with a trace a few years ago. Showing her thought process, she explains she’s been following all three of the others, and it’s totally not stalking on the grounds she neither wants to kill or mount any of them.

Going by film logic, I’m not sure it counts as stalking in J.J.’s case due to the fact J.J. obviously knows she’s there but is content to just ignore her.

Sitting down, she sees a newspaper headline about Martin being in a suicide pact with a politician’s daughter. Her dad calls again, and she answers, “Okay, now, I know why you’re ringing.”

The talented Sam Neill plays her dad. He’s a bit bumbling, and whether intentional or not, he manages to give the impression he cares more about what this situation is doing to his career than Jess herself. Case in point: he invited Martin, the man who his 18-year-old daughter supposedly has a suicide pack with and who was found guilty of sleeping with a minor, to come talk with them.

She and Martin try to find out who went to the press. She immediately dismisses too-shy J.J., and they mutually dismiss Maureen. She realises it was her worthless ex-boyfriend.

Mr Crichton asks if Martin is going to maintain his relationship with Jess.

Irritated about how her dad seems more concerned about the media, Jess flounces off, and hinting he himself was a good dad, Martin more-or-less calls Mr Crichton an idiot. They awkwardly part ways.

There’s a scene of Jess being literally mobbed by the media as she walks, and exposition is given on Jess’s older sister, Jennifer. It’s also revealed Mr Crichton’s first name is Chris.

In her room, there’s a picture of what’s likely her older sister. She softly sings/recites poetry to herself. Knocking, her dad asks permission to come in. When he comes in, he finds her gone.

Interestingly, the words, _Never Hide_ , are on her wall, but she’s hiding on top of her bedroom roof when her dad looks out her window.

Back inside, there’s a wordless scene of him sitting on her bed, and with this moment, Sam Neill manages to convey Mr Crichton does genuinely care about his daughter and want to connect with her. He simply doesn’t know how.

Jess sits on the roof until nightfall, and the next scene has her showing up at Maureen’s. Martin and J.J. are already there, and Jess discovers Maureen’s son, Matty. He’s in a wheelchair, has no control over his functions, and doesn’t appear cognisant of his surroundings.

Josef Altin plays him, and he does a fantastic job here. I hope to see him in more soon. He did a good job as Pyp on **Game of Thrones** , and I liked what little I saw of him on **London Spy**.

Jess starts in, and J.J. firmly shuts her down.

Maureen feels the need to justify herself, but J.J. makes it clear she doesn’t need to. Maureen insists, however. If she dies, social services will be forced to pay for proper care for him. She somewhat angrily insists she wasn’t hiding him and that she has never physically mistreated him.

Martin suggests they all explain their story to the world in an attempt to control the narrative and maybe get a bit of money out of it. They all agree.

Thanks to Jess, however, this doesn’t go well for them.

There’s an awkward dinner scene of Jess and her parents, and next up is a televised interview with the foursome. When Jess’s sister is brought up, she leaves.

J.J. catches up with her, and she takes him to the spot where her sister’s car was found parked. They share something of a moment, and she half-asks, half-states, “You don’t have cancer, do you?”

He tries to insist he does, and she responds, “J.J., I’m a professional liar. You’re not even a competent one.”

When he admits it just came out, and after it did, he couldn’t take it back, she just wants to establish he was actually suicidal rather than just trying to deliver a pizza.

He makes clear he was going to jump, and she asks, “Why?”

At his inability to answer, she declares it’s a simple enough question.

Many questions are simple. The answers are often not.

Their bond deepens with teasing from her, laughter from both, and her declaration they’re both strange. He reveals himself to be a bird watcher, and they lean against one another.

J.J.’s POV act starts with him waking up. He VOs about once being in a band. Being recognised in the mall, “For me, that was fame.”

Now, he sneaks out of his flat via the window to avoid the reporters. Funnily, he has a causal chat with a neighbour whilst doing so.

It’s established to have been three weeks, and Martin has convinced them all to go on a mini-vacation with him.

There’s this great line, “I wish I had thought life a better option than death, but I didn’t, and wishing wasn’t going to fix it.”

At the airport, Jess opines one of the four is going to commit physical violence against another of the four before the week is over. J.J. asks who’s looking after Matty, and Martin assures Maureen a break will be good for both her and Matty. She exposits he’s been admitted for observation.

J.J.’s POV shifts slightly to Maureen as she almost has a panic attack when prompted to show her boarding pass and passport, and before she can get on the plane, she starts to run away. Martin stops her, and J.J. expression is extremely sympathetic, but his words and tone are more practical. He points out her old life wasn’t good, and they made a pact.

“It’s going to be fine,” he promises.

They all guide her onto the plane.

The scene really does come across as a mum being unsure about a family trip and dad and the kids working together to help her overcome this.

When they arrive, J.J. and Jess are physically affectionate, and Martin is an endearing, embarrassing dad. At an outside café, they all toast to having a good holiday.

A waiter comes over, and endearing, embarrassing dad Martin has banter with him. He asks Maureen, “He always this clever, your husband?”

Jess makes it clear the two aren’t married.

No, they aren’t, and there’s never any romance or hints of it between them, but they are essentially co-parenting together. Jess and J.J. aren’t siblings, but they do share a set of parents.

The waiter jokes about them all being lovers, and three of them play along. J.J. and Martin put on some fake homoeroticism, and Jess enthusiastically agrees. Maureen, however, is all, ‘No! These two are my adoptive children, and this is the man who has co-adopted with me, and also, the last thing I want is the press further mucking up our lives by throwing such a suggestion out into the public.’

Then, she remembers someone once told her a joke about Vaseline, but she can’t remember what the joke was. Jess insists she keep drinking.

A nearby woman catches J.J.’s eye, and they have some non-verbal flirting.

At the sea, Maureen is enjoying the sun and how the water looks. She balks at the suggestion of going in, but her family doesn’t give her a choice.

It’s a great scene of the four of them happily playing together in the water. I especially love the father-son bonding between Martin and J.J. going on.

Later, the two men talk on a balcony, and it doesn’t go as well. Martin can’t find the joy in all this. He wants his old, privileged life back, and he’s judgemental towards both them and himself. He goes on about J.J.’s cancer, and J.J. almost tells him but doesn’t.

At dinner, they talk about what they’d ask for if God granted each of them three wishes. Jess doesn’t take it seriously. Maureen protests the question but eventually settles on more help, more of a life for herself, and for her son to be all better. Martin is self-pitying. Excusing himself, J.J. is approached by the woman he saw earlier.

She thinks she recognises him, and he acknowledges he’s been in the papers lately. It seems he might be gearing up to tell her, but she brings up the band he was once in. She asks what his name stands for, and the answer is John Julius.

Her name is Cathy.

They dance, briefly coming over, Martin is his typical endearing, embarrassing dad self, and J.J. characterises Martin as his uncle.

He thinks he’s lying, but in a way, he isn’t. For the rest of his life, Martin is going to be his family, and so long as Martin can, he’s going to make sure J.J.’s life is a long one.

When he and Cathy go off, Martin drags Maureen into dancing, and a forlorn Jess wanders off.

Later, J.J. and Cathy go for a walk, and he kind of avoids going into detail about his family, aka the others. She surmises he doesn’t like them, and denying this, he simply says they can just be a little intense.

He definitely isn’t lying there.

They share stories about their own bouts of intensity, and he confesses to lying about having cancer to avoid going into the real reason for almost committing suicide.

She asks what the real reason was, and he answers, “I- you know what? I don’t know.”

The film never gives an explicit answer in dialogue, but personally, I think J.J. is clinically depressed.

They go back to his room, and I really like the way this plays out. He turns on the lights, and turning them back off, she kisses him. He tells her he hasn’t done this in a while, and she continues kissing him. A big deal isn’t made out of it, but it’s clear J.J. wasn’t outright expecting anything and wouldn’t have pushed her if she decided to limit things to just hanging out or decided to leave.

Further into the night, he jolts awake. Tenderly strokes her arm, he goes to the toilet.

The problem: Jess is hanging out in there. And she has been all night. To top it all off, she informs him Cathy is a journalist.

She’s right, but her evidence of seeing a recorder in Cathy’s bag is weak.

Jess leaves, J.J. finds the recorder, and it does have the earlier conversation he had with Cathy on it. Going out to the sea, he tosses it away. Then, he swims and swims.

He’s not explicitly breaking the pact, because, he could make it back to shore, but if he doesn’t- he doesn’t particularly care about breaking the pact at this moment in time.

There’s an extremely powerful shot of him all alone in the middle of the vast sea, and the shot moves and moves until he’s not even a dot.

Back at the hotel, I’m with Martin on finding the way the kids are consuming chocolate from a fountain to be completely unsanitary. It’s not cute or sweet, and an adult should be stopping them.

Maureen, however, does find it sweet. Thanking him for arranging the holiday, she coaxes a grumpy, self-disgusted Martin into having some breakfast.

J.J. comes in, and Jess has joined the parents. He starts to confess everything, and Maureen is adorable. She’s worried he’s going back to America, and when he confesses to the non-cancer, she thinks he’s been cured. Aw.

Martin doesn’t take this well, but Jess and Maureen are supportive.

Cathy appears, and J.J. tries to postpone the conversation, but Martin is too wrapped in all this, and J.J. has to admit Cathy’s a journalist.

“Shit,” is Cathy’s response.

J.J. says he didn’t know, and Maureen believes him. She tries to do damage control, but Martin isn’t having any of their attempts.

Martin and J.J. get into a physical fight, and Jess attacks Cathy.

The only one who doesn’t come back with a black eye, or in Jess’s case, two black eyes, is Maureen.

Speaking of, now’s her POV. She takes care of Matty, and her VO establishes how conflicted she is about wanting more freedom and normality due to her genuine love and non-resentment for her son.

Thanks the piece “J.J.’s girlfriend” wrote, the story hasn’t died, and the four of them haven’t kept in contact. Jess is doing her stalking routine, however, and Maureen does non-intrusively pop by J.J.’s workplace on occasion.

Awesomely, it’s shown, unbeknownst to her, Martin comes around to draw her attention away from her and Matty. Aw.

The building blocks for friendship and a possible romance are set between her and one of Matty’s doctors.

Then, one night, she realises Matty isn’t breathing. Despite her desperate, almost panic, she dials for help before starting chest compressions.

At the hospital, Martin sweetly hugs her. Jess and her father show up, too.

In the cafeteria, Jess insists everyone have hot chocolate despite Martin’s request for tea, and Maureen reveals she hasn’t been able to get a hold of J.J.

“I genuinely don’t know how you survived her,” Martin says to his daughter’s other dad.

“Earplugs,” is the answer. Heh.

Jess warns she’s going to make her primary dad go wait in the car.

Maureen finally fully breaks, and she emotionally insists none of her reasons for being on the roof had anything to with Matty or a lack of love for him. All her helplessness and pain at it just boiled over.

Jess gently assures her they know.

Coming over, Maureen’s doctor friend assures her Matty made it through the surgery. He’ll be fine.

She’s taken to see him, and she blames herself and the lack of proper care for not having seen the danger earlier.

The doctor declares she saved Matty. Explaining he had a heart attack of sorts, he points out he (the doctor) himself didn’t notice despite his observation of Matty.

Outside the room, Mr Crichton takes Jess’s hand, and in the room, the doctor tentatively suggests Matty wouldn’t be able to emotionally withstand losing his mum.

Jess and Martin are walking down the hall when someone with Valentine Day balloons goes past, and with dread creeping in, Jess realises aloud, “It’s Valentine’s day.”

“Um-hm,” Martin absently agrees.

“Martin, today is Valentine’s day,” she says with increased panic.

“Good.”

“Martin!”

Suddenly, he remembers, “J.J. The pact.”

“Get Maureen. I’m going to find J.J., now.”

The fact she and J.J. eventually become lovers doesn’t matter. She does care about him for him, but right now, it’s: After all this, she isn’t going to let their shared mother lose one of her sons. She isn’t going to let Martin lose his only boy. Her other parents lost a child, and she’s seen how, in many ways, it’s destroyed them, and if her new parents are destroyed, they’ll soon follow J.J. off the roof.

At the pizza place, it’s revealed J.J. quit a week ago without even serving notice. Mr Crichton tries to defend J.J. against the boss’s insults, and good on him for truly starting to try.

Over at J.J.’s flat, Maureen discovers articles pinned up about jumpers from the spot.

Martin goes straight to the tower. He doesn’t struggle the way J.J. does or particularly understand it, but he does know J.J.

When he gets up to the top, he has to brace himself before going out.

On the one hand, J.J. is still alive. On the other, this other human being, this young man, this person he loves, his son, his boy, is standing on the edge of a building. One wrong step, and he’s dead. One deliberate step a certain way, and he’s gone forever.

J.J. is shaking from fear, pain, and the cold when he hears, “I hoped you wouldn’t be up here.”

He insists he kept to the pact, and therefore, this is none of Martin’s business.

Martin doesn’t know how to express how untrue this is, and so, he concedes, “True.” What he does know how to do, however, is beg for the answer to why.

It’s nerve wracking for both Martin and this part of the audience to watch J.J. move around, to hear the rattling as he does.

“I didn’t lie to you. I don’t know.” There’s more, and then, “That makes my reason better than any of yours.”

“I wasn’t aware this was a competition,” Martin replies.

J.J. breaks down his assessment of everyone: Jess needs to feel important, Maureen needs to feel loved, and Martin just needs to grow a brain.

“Fair enough.”

Continuing, J.J. gets to the crux of it: They can all solve their problems, but he can’t solve his.

Maureen appears, and J.J.’s faced with a challenge. He loves all of them, but he has a particular soft spot for Maureen. She won’t feel loved if he does this, and he was able to ignore this as long as she wasn’t right there, invoking feelings of protectiveness and respect and affection in him.

He tries to explain, and part of him realises as he does that he does share similarities with all of them. He feels helpless, scared, and unable to escape himself.

The problem is, specific things make them feel this, and theirs are easily identified. As I said, I think his is a chemical imbalance, his own body and brain working against him, and he doesn’t know this. All the changes he makes to his life aren’t working, but this doesn’t mean no change ever will.

Martin's response is, “Sounds like you got it all worked out, J.J. It’s logical. The reason you want to die is, because, you don’t want to live. It’s as simple as that, right?”

Cue Jess arriving.

Assuming her dad drove her, I have to wonder how the conversation of, ‘Dad, take me to the place I once tried to commit suicide,’ and, ‘Stay in the car as I go up to the place I once tried to commit suicide at,’ went.

“I used to think like that, too,” Martin continues. “And then, there were four.”

J.J. emotionally says they all made it to Valentine’s day, and yet, nothing has changed.

“But everything has changed,” Martin counters.

The three all give examples, and Maureen’s is the most effective. “I hope- I think we still matter to you, J.J. I mean, why else would you pick Valentine’s day? You may think you want to die, but you knew we’d look for you.”

“We’re not up here, because, we want to die. We’re here for you,” Martin adds. “The Topper House Four. We belong together. We’re a team.”

He has a funny bit about how screwed up they are and how he wouldn’t pick any of them, but still. Seeing how J.J.’s defeat has him close to wavering, he says, “I know. It’s not much, son. But- maybe- we’re a start.”

Turning, J.J. looks down. “You can’t even see the bottom.”

320 days later, all four of them are video-chatting. Martin is sitting with one of his sleeping daughters, there’s a party at Maureen’s, and it’s revealed the Js are both in therapy. J.J. talks about a man who survived jumping of the Golden Gate bridge; once he jumped, he realised the only thing in his life he couldn’t fix was the thing he just did.

“To me, it feels like I fell without falling. Because of you guys. I had my five seconds up on that roof, and not in the air.”

“We each gave each other five seconds,” Maureen muses.

A friend of Maureen’s, likely the doctor, talks to her off-screen, and she’s dragged back out to the party.

Martin blows a kiss to his son and daughter before signing off.

It’s revealed, despite different backgrounds behind them, J.J. and Jess are in the same place, and they’re in a relationship.

The last scene has Martin carrying his daughter to bed.

Fin.


End file.
